Right-Wing Wusses: When did the loudmouths become such a bunch of fraidy-cats and victims?

[Better Believe It]

Right-Wing Wusses
By Eugene Robinson
August 23, 2010

When did the loudmouths of the American right become such a bunch of fraidy-cats and professional victims? Or is it all just an act?

The hysteria over plans for an innocuous Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan—two blocks from Ground Zero, amid an urban hodgepodge of office buildings, eateries and strip clubs—is wildly out of proportion. It would be laughable if it didn’t threaten to do great harm to the global campaign against Islamic terrorism.

Yet right-wing commentators and politicians have twisted themselves in knots to portray the Park51 project as some kind of grievous assault—and “the American people” as victims. Victims of what? Rauf’s sinister plot to despoil the city with a fitness center, a swimming pool and—shudder—a space for the performing arts?

Message to anyone who will listen: You’re a victim. Be very afraid.

The thing is, though, that the manufactured brouhaha over the Park51 project is part of a larger pattern in which the far right embraces victimhood and stokes fear. The faction that likes to portray itself as a bunch of John Waynes and “mama grizzlies,” it turns out, spends an awful lot of time cowering in the corner and complaining about how beastly everyone else is being.

Witness the frequent eruptions over instances of reverse racism—real or imagined. The Shirley Sherrod affair was the most recent example of how eagerly the far right wants to sell the false narrative that African-Americans, once they achieve positions of authority, will use their newly acquired power to punish whites for historical discrimination. The facts of the Sherrod case, as they finally emerged, argue persuasively against this fictional tale of longed-for revenge. But it will be back.

And look at the hysteria over illegal immigration. Facts don’t matter—for example, that the flow of undocumented migrants has decreased, or that border enforcement under President Barack Obama is much tougher than under George W. Bush, or that illegal immigrants are not responsible for any kind of crime wave. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, has gone so far as to sound the alarm about alleged “terror babies.” The idea is that undocumented pregnant women would cross the border so that their children could have U.S. citizenship, then take the babies away to be raised as terrorists—who would be able to come back in 20 years or so, with legitimate U.S. passports, and presumably wreak untold havoc. No, I did not make that up.

Is the far right really afraid of its own shadow? Do these people really have so little faith in our nation’s strength, resilience and values? I hope this is all just cynical political calculation, because there are genuine threats and challenges out there. We’ll be better off meeting them with a spine, not a whine.

Read the full article at:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/right_wing_wusses_20100823/

[arbusto_baboso]

1. Become? They always have been cowards.

Anyone remember Joe McCarthy? Just another ultra-right fucking ball-less coward.

[maxsolomon]

2. Self-centered fear is what defines conservatives

they fear change, they fear the unknown.

[sarge43]

4. They fear life.

As you say they fear its change, its diversity, its complexity, its optimism, its drive for freedom. This is why they try to repress women, the carriers of life; why they always turn to violence as a solution.

[Blue Meany]

3. The folks who started the anti-Mosque fervor are truly

Islamaphobes who don't want mosques or Muslims anywhere in America. They have a long history of these kinds of attacks; ground zero is just a convenient tag line to gin up controversy.